I've got another side to Bartelman

Too much to say.

Former Ontario Lieutenant-Governor James Bartleman has died and the media is full of glowing reports of his accomplishments.

I've got another side.

Just after his tenure ended in 2006, I invited Bartleman to be the guest speaker at a Royal Commonwealth Society dinner and was thrilled when he accepted.  Little did I know his purpose in accepting was solely to trash Canada, the Commonwealth and all they represented.

With an Indigenous mother, Bartleman was a member of the Chippewas of Rama First Nation and attended a residential school.  That's what he trashed, the residential school system -- the very system that gave him the education that allowed him to succeed and become lieutenant governor!

He went on and on with such vitriol I was embarrassed and ashamed I had invited and introduced him.  He was the guest at the head table and I was sitting beside him, but it was so bad, I wanted to hide under it.  Here we were, a crowd of respectable, middle-aged members of a civil society, sitting there being accused of ruining his and many other's lives.

So, when I read in his obituary that he valued education above all else, I have to laugh.  "My mother insisted that we go as far as we could in school.  She instilled in us a pride of our native heritage," says 'The Globe and Mail' today.  

His greatest contribution was the establishment of the Lieutenant-Governor's Literacy Camps.  Wouldn't his experience and success at residential school have been his motivation?  Not from what he said in his speech because he described it as horrendous and ruinous.  

But wait, didn't that education enable him to go to university?  Didn't that education enable him to join Foreign Affairs and enjoy a 35-year career serving in 18 countries and regions across the world?  Didn't that experience enable him to become ambassador of Canada to Cuba, Israel, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the European Union and high commissioner South Africa and Australia?

So, folks, maybe he was having a bad day when he hectored us.  But I doubt it.  Bartleman took the perks willingly, but deplored the system that allowed him to get them.

Shameful.